Viewpoint: Keeping a Close Watch – The Rise of Self-Surveillance and the Threat of Digital Exposure

Abstract

Digital technologies have given rise to increased occurrences of self-surveillance and forms of ‘virtual vigilantism’. This has progressed from key moments such as the video recording of the Rodney King incident, to recording human rights abuses, to citizen grassroots surveillance. From this has emerged the phenomenon known as citizen journalism where recent urban crises have been recorded on mobile phones by the individuals involved. Also on the increase are forms of mob vigilantism, or ‘participatory panopticon’; examples here include phone images spread over the Internet as severe forms of ‘community punishment’. I argue that these unmediated forms of bottom-up surveillance – sousveillance – show the early signs of a new type of civil responsibility that stands unregulated and without restraint. This paper addresses the issues of increased individualised self-surveillance and asks whether this is the consequence of a personalised resistance to an ever increasing surveillance society.